Past lives?

Samael is, on the one hand, just another teen supernatural romance. Hopefully it is a pacy read, an exciting, scary and romantic page-turner. But it does have some deeper stuff going on under the surface. The book (or rather the trilogy) explores many esoteric ideas and, in particular, the concepts of reincarnation and karma.

All the main characters in the book have karmic links; they have known one another in other lifetimes, in other guises.

Samael and Gen are linked at a deep soul-level. I won't give away exactly how and why but, suffice to say, their bond is immense and deep. No matter how hard they may try to keep away from one another (Samael consciously; Gen unconciously) they are fighting a losing battle.  Their souls simply yearn for one another. As the series progresses, the relationship between the two of them becomes clearer and we see just why they are so attracted - but also how dangerous their relationship could be.

I have undergone a fair amount of past life therapy, and have even trained as a past life therapist (though I don't practice!).  I was lucky enough to meet and work with the wonderful healer, shaman and all-round lovely woman, Denise Linn.  Denise is convinced by the idea of reincarnation.  In fact, she thinks that past life trauma can be the cause of many current life illnesses and psychological issues. She has seen people cured of severe arthritis after undergoing past life therapy; people with hearing loss who have regained their hearing; people with impaired vision who have regained their sight.  She's seen phobias clear up almost instanteously and asthmatics throw away their inhalers. Denise says you generally find that asthmatics have been strangled or asphyxiated in a previous incarnation.

But what about Samael and Gen?  Denise does believe that people can repeat obsessive relationships from incarnation to incarnation and she thinks the therapy can often throw light on love and sex. 'When you find out that your father was your wife in a past life, or that your mother was your daughter, that transforms those relationships because you begin to understand why you are with those people,' she explains.

I have met my husband in previous lives - but, interestingly, as my brother...  My past lives have been an intriguing mix.  My first experience took me back to a tough uncompromisingly bleak life as a peasant.  I was a man, exhausted from trying to keep my wife and children fed.  I died of pneumonia, shivering in the cold, guilt dripping from every pore that I was leaving them behind.  I have lived lives as an athlete in ancient Greece, a 17th century herbalist and a bored Victorian housewife.  Perhaps the most shocking was a life in a very ancient Ireland in which I was sacrificed, with stones being pressed over me, as my beloved was held back, kept from saving me. 

I also had glimpses of a very very remote life as a priestess in which I and my lover did something terribly, fatefully wrong; in which we turned aside from the path we were supposed to follow.  Or, at least, that's what I 'saw' in the trance state of regression. 

What do you think? 

Do you believe you've lived before? 
Do you think we meet the same people, time and time again?